Car bomb kills nine in Afrin: Observatory

A car bomb killed at least nine people including five civilians near a pro-Turkey rebel post in the northern Syrian city of Afrin Sunday, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The group said it was not clear who was behind the blast in the city, which was seized from Kurdish forces earlier this year.

The explosion comes after the Turkish president Wednesday threatened to launch a new offensive against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria.

The Observatory said the blast in a market wounded dozens, and the toll was likely to rise.

Vegetable seller Abu Yazan al-Qabuni said he was in the market toward midday when he saw a van enter. “We thought it was carrying vegetables,” he said.

After a huge blast rocked the area, he ran to the site of the explosion, finding wounded people and body parts on the ground.

“I put them in a bag and buried them,” he said.

“There are no armed gangs, no terrorists here. We’re a vegetable market,” he added, indignant.

Turkey accuses the YPG of being “terrorists,” but the Kurdish militia also forms the backbone of a U.S.-backed alliance fighting Daesh (ISIS) in Syria.

YPG forces are present in areas along the Turkish border to the east of Afrin.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday Turkey was planning to launch a new offensive within the “next few days” against the YPG in northern Syria.

A day later, a Turkish soldier was killed in the Afrin region after coming under fire from the YPG, the Turkish Defense Ministry said.

American forces are present in an area along the Turkish border east of Afrin, as part of the U.S.-led coalition fighting Daesh.

Erdogan has strongly criticized Washington’s support for the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces fighting Daesh in their last holdout in the far east of the country.

The U.S. military said Saturday that coalition forces destroyed a Daesh command center inside a mosque in the eastern border town of Hajin.

The statement comes as the Kurdish-led forces mop up the final remnants of Daesh militants in Hajin, which is near the border with Iraq, the largest settlement in what is the last pocket of territory controlled by the militants.

More than 16 “heavily armed” militants were at the “command and control node” at the mosque when it was destroyed by a “precision strike,” a statement from the Combined Joint Task Force read.

Fighters with the Syrian Democratic Forces secured Hajin after weeks of heavy fighting Friday, the Observatory said.

Meanwhile, outgoing U.N. envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura Sunday said peace in Syria could be won through a post-war “inclusive constitution.” De Mistura is trying to set up a U.N.-backed constitutional committee for Syria that would include 50 members chosen by Damascus, 50 by the opposition and 50 by the United Nations.

The planned constitutional committee was agreed at a Russia-hosted conference in January.

The centerpiece of U.N. peace efforts in Syria, the committee would be tasked with negotiating a new postwar constitution that would pave the way to elections aimed at turning the page on seven years of devastating war.

But it has run into objections from the Syrian government.

The opposition has pushed for an entirely new constitution, but Damascus has said it will only discuss altering the current one.

Source: Car bomb kills nine in Afrin: Observatory | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR